Why your Video Strategy isn’t Working and 3 Ways to Fix it 🥳

WHY ISN’T MY VIDEO WORKING? 

Money is not infinite, especially right now, and proving video marketing as a good investment to ensure next year’s budget can be tricky. In the next 8 weeks, you need to focus on the company priorities and where budgeting can facilitate this by allocating resources to a campaign designed for a society with economic hardships, ready to hit 2024 running. At the same time, you’ll need to balance the call to spend with the increasing need for authentic CSR statements, interactions and visibility, an alignment that can often seem contradictive or contrived in short collage messages message produced templates on Canva or Powtoon. Because while excellent , excellent apps, they still need relevant content and strategy. 

In times of economic downturn, there is an increased need for long-term planning that can ensure a return on investment but due to the nature of our societal growth in this digital age, you also have to go that extra mile to distribute your messaging across social platforms without increasing costs.

So, the best way to optimise ROI on any asset is to plan a fit for purpose piece and then evaluate how it can be repurposed, repackaged and re-distributed effectively, before production begins. why? Because otherwise you’re going to be chasing your tail trying to retrofit posted stuff or brainstorm new stuff whilst trying to do everything else that marketing departments require.  Enter stage right: Deconstructed Video Marketing. A single film can be chopped up and taken part to be made into multiple assets such as teaser film, animated social posts, Gifs and Gipheys that manage to tickle even the hardest-to-reach audiences. But even before we consider the cornucopia of content available to video marketers, let us refresh our memories and look at ‘Why Video’.

1. How to Optimise Engagement

One of the main reasons why video marketing is so effective is that it has a high engagement rate. According to HubSpot, 54% of consumers want to see more video content from brands they support. Video content is more engaging than text or static images because it captures the viewer’s attention and tells a story. With the right video content, you can create an emotional connection with your audience, which can lead to increased brand loyalty and sales.

To do this getting the right content is key. Use website like Answer The Public to find out what people are really looking for. You get 3 searches for free and you just need to type in your business. For example ‘Blue Nike running Shoes’

2. How to get People to Share your Video Right Now

Another benefit of video marketing is that it is highly shareable. It’s format is welcome on every social media platform and on some the only format they accept. When someone comes across a video that they find interesting or entertaining, they are more likely to share it with their friends and family. This can lead to increased brand awareness and exposure. According to Brightcove, social video generates 1200% more shares than text and image content combined. By creating shareable video content, you can reach a wider audience and increase your chances of going viral. So why are they not sharing it?

3. How to use Video to Improve your SEO

Produced and distributed correctly, you can be certain that video will improve your SEO! Google and other search engines favour websites that have engaging and relevant video content. According to HubSpot, websites with video are 53 times more likely to rank on the first page of Google search results. By incorporating video into your website and other marketing channels, you can improve your chances of being found by potential customers online. Media sharing is one of the most trusted ways to distribute a message as it’s peer-to-peer marketing, a literal recommendation from someone you know! But how EXCATLY do I use video to improve my SEO??? Well you need to be thinking about thumbnails, tagging and metdata.

1. Design Your Thumbnail: Prioritize this even before you hit the publish button.
2. Tag Judiciously: Use platform-specific guidelines for maximum tag efficiency.
3. Optimize Metadata: Before publishing, review to make sure keywords are naturally integrated.

Thumbnails:

What They Are: Thumbnails serve as the first visual touchpoint, essentially acting as the book cover for your video content.

How to Apply:

1. Technical: Create a custom thumbnail image at a resolution of 1280×720 pixels, maintaining an aspect ratio of 16:9.
2. Practical: Use bold text, contrasting colors, and relevant imagery that encapsulates the core message or intrigue of your video.

Pro Tip:

A/B test different thumbnails to gauge which performs better in terms of clicks and watch time.

Tagging:

What They Are: Tags are keywords or phrases that help classify your video and improve its discoverability.

How to Apply:

1. Technical: Use platform-specific features to add tags; for instance, in YouTube, it’s under ‘More Options’ when uploading a video.
2. Practical: Include a mix of broad and niche tags—both industry terms and specific topics covered in your video.

Pro Tip:

Use tools like Google’s Tag Manager or TubeBuddy to identify high-performing tags.

Metadata:

What They Are: Metadata includes the title, description, and additional information that helps search algorithms index your video effectively.

How to Apply:

1. Technical: Keep your title under 60 characters and your meta description under 150 characters to ensure they display correctly on most platforms.
2. Practical: Incorporate keywords naturally in your title and description. Provide a succinct yet informative summary that includes CTAs, relevant links, or timestamps.

Pro Tip:

Adding closed captions or a transcript can further enhance your video’s metadata, making it more accessible and search-friendly.

By thoughtfully implementing these elements, you’re not just throwing content into the digital abyss—you’re strategically placing it where your target audience can engage.

Get More Bang for your Buck

As we alluded to at the beginning, the key to investing rather than just spending is about the value you get out. You can’t just make a video and expect it to change your world. You need to create a strategy and organize how you will distribute it. Moreover don’t just make one film and leave it there. Consider your film a structure made of smaller blocks that can be broken off to make other things. Here’s our top strategy tips:

• Pinpoint your message. Keep it tight, no more than 3 statements max.
• Know your objective. What do you want to achieve?
• What are your channels or platforms? Don’t just post everywhere, where does your demographic hang out?
• Plan a master video or hero film with elements that can be pulled from it to segment the messaging. This is a visual and narrative consideration as well as a format-based one.
• Let your master video or animation live in hero spots like your site’s front page or the conversion page. Ensure it has a clear call to action that leads to your desired outcome. Also put it on Youtube, Facebook and Vimeo ensuring it is well-tagged to make it more searchable.
• Create as many 15 – 30 second cut downs as possible from your main film. They should highlight a single message from your master film and include a call to action to see the full film. These can take many forms and again depend on your audience.
• Drill down further by producing editing templates that house parts of your animation or film. They essentially create a moving poster or postcard that you can add text to using Canva and then post to continue the breadcrumb trail to your main film or video.

• Lastly ensure any graphics are repurposed as Gifs, Gipheys, Stickers or even vector graphics so they can be weaved throughout all campaign materials, company spaces and departments. Check out our Gnu Films Giphey catalogue you can use for free!

Collectively this makes for a very effective media toolkit that can be used to spread useful, valuable content through a month or two of social media, even inter-departmentally (perhaps sharing a load of that budget eh?). And don’t be afraid to re-post it in a few months time. Contrary to what we believe, people are not just goal-hanging by our social water-cooler waiting for the next drop. If this sounds like an excellent plan to you (and it is one ; ) then drop us a line and we can send you some rate cards to show you just how simple and cost-effective it is.

If you’d like to see our rate cards, feel free to get in touch via our contact form or whizz us over an email to production@gnufilms.co.uk. Or if you’d rather have a chat, give us a buzz at 01604 422911 to speak with our brilliant video and marketing experts who’ll help find the best video solution for you :)